She looked away. She didn’t want to hear any more.
“Blood.”
Her stomach turned. She was going to be sick.
“Blood from my daughter. From you. And too many others over the years to count.”
“I need to sit up,” she said, and tried to move. “I’m going to be sick.”
He shoved a rolled-up blanket under her neck and shoulders, elevating her head. “All so Kafu can walk the earth in the body of her son.”
“Drew?” Shock quelled her nausea.
“With Kafu inside him, he’ll be able to achieve anything he wants. Anything she wants.”
Laura shivered as his words penetrated her foggy brain. Not possible. Not real. “Martha loves Drew.”
“Yes, and what greater gift can she bestow on her only son than to walk with a god? What do you think ‘awakening’ means? She’s going to awaken the spirit within him.”
Laura’s eyes shot open. “Will she hurt Drew?”
“Worse. He will be there, but he will be different. The Drew you love will be lost.”
Terror seized her.
He held a knife to the candle flame. She tried not to look at it, to think about what he might do with it.
“Help him,” she whispered. He brought the knife to the hole in her shoulder and slipped it in. Laura screamed, succumbing to the pain, and slid into the darkness.
“All right,” Drew whispered and took a deep breath. “Tell me what to do.”
“Good.” Mary nodded in satisfaction. “Close your eyes. Take three deep cleansing breaths. Pull in the white light and exhale out your fear and negative energy like a black toxic cloud. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. As you pull in the white light, let it fill you with warmth. Know it is here to help you. Welcome it in. Embrace it. Paul is that light. The other spirits are part of that light. Open yourself up, Drew. Let them in.”
He did as she asked, inhaling the white light, exhaling his fears. Focusing, concentrating. He remembered Laura as he’d made love to her, expanding then shattering into a million bright lights. Was he seeing a vision of her after tonight? After his mother killed her?
Pushing away his despair, he again exhaled the black cloud of negativity and fear and drew in the light. He could do this. He could save Laura.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the white light surrounding Paul, and suddenly he could hear his voice. As clearly as he had when Paul was alive.
“Be strong, Drew. We can fight him. Together.”
A wave of dizziness crashed over him. Drew faltered. Mary grabbed onto him, steadying him. He saw the lights of the spirits surrounding him. There were so many. All Kafu’s victims? He shuddered.
Something expanded within him. Growing.
“Breathe in the light, Drew. Feel it. Absorb it. Picture the brick-and-mortar walls you’ve erected in your mind then knock them down. Let the light in. Let it fill you.”
He did as she said. A fierce wave of noise hit him. He smashed his hands against his ears, trying to block out the otherworldly chatter.
“Tune it out, Drew. Focus on one voice at a time. You have the control. The power. Visualize what you want.”
Her words barely reached through the din. He followed what she said, and found the relief he needed to be able to be able to function.
Paul stood in front of him. “Fight him, Drew. Don’t let him in. Don’t let him have my daughter.”
Drew felt the presence inside him expanding. Filling him. Something big. Something powerful. Something a lot stronger than he was.
Kafu.
The door to the shack burst open with a thunderous roar. The walls shook. The hunter jumped up so fast his chair fell over. The blurred figures of two men filled the room. Laura blinked, trying to clear her vision.
Hands grabbed her, pulling. White-hot pain burned through her shoulder.
She screamed.
“Fight them, Laura. Don’t give in,” the hunter yelled. “Do it for your mother.”
One of the men hit him. Hard. He crumpled to the floor, looking at her with eyes full of despair, before they rolled back and closed.
“Charlie?” Was he dead? Had they killed him?
Fear flooded through her. Rough hands yanked her up off the cot and through the door. She screamed and choked. The pain in her shoulder was excruciating as they forced her through the woods. Blackness edged her vision, threatening to pull her down. She couldn’t succumb. She had to fight it.
She had to live!
She barely noticed the rain had stopped as they dragged her to a car parked in the road. One man opened the car’s back door, another pushed her inside. They climbed in the front and put the car in gear. Gravel flew as the car sped down the road.
Branches scraped metal. Tires spun as they took a corner too fast and pulled into a clearing. They were barely stopped when people gathered around the car and opened the door.
“Take her to the water,” a woman yelled in a high-pitched excited voice.
Hands pulled her out, half dragging and half carrying her toward a bonfire lit at the water’s edge. A crowd of people gathered around them. Why were there so many? Why wasn’t anyone helping her?
Cold fingers smeared her head with oil as they walked. Voices chanted weird words that sounded terrifyingly familiar. Firelight flickered, black smoke filled the air…and then she remembered. She remembered everything.
Shock trembled through her. It was true. All of it. Her mother, Jeanne and Charlie the crazy hunter, they had all tried to tell her. Tried to stop her. But she had refused to listen. To believe.
Everything they had said was true.
Wide-eyed, she looked around her. A raging fire roared.
Candles burned. Animals screamed. People prowled about as they dragged her to the water’s edge.
To Martha.
Only Martha looked taller. Bigger. Wavy blue lines covered her cheeks. Her hair was piled high on her head, the long column of her neck bare.
How could Laura have not seen or believed what everyone had been trying to tell her? Tears filled her eyes. Now it was too late. For her. For her mother. For Drew.
Fight, Laura. The hunter’s words rang through her mind.
But how?
Suddenly Drew walked into the clearing. She almost called out to him, but stopped herself. He looked different. Colder. More distant. His eyes grazed over her, but didn’t linger.
Fear twisted inside her gut. Something had gone wrong. Something had happened to him.
He will be there, but he will be different.
Chapter 19
Drew walked into the clearing as if he belonged there. Because he did. All this—the candles, the altars, the animal sacrifices—they were for him.
“Focus on the light, Drew,” Mary said, touching his arm. He brushed her off and kept walking.
People stood back as he continued forward, heads bowed, lips moving in feverish mutterings. Shadows flitted among them. Some dark. Some light. The dead. The powerless.
He saw Laura being dragged toward the water. Blood seeped from a wound in her shoulder. Blood spilled for him.
Blood that would make his journey complete.
He walked toward his mother. She smiled, knowing he’d changed, knowing he’d let the spirits in. That he’d opened himself up to the presence that was in him. To Kafu.
Her eyes flicked to Paul, who traveled beside him, but his presence had no effect on her or on what was about to happen. Paul was nothing but a shadow, trapped like a flitting moth between here and there.
Drew’s mother took his hand and led him to the high-back chair. He sat in the enclosure and let a tall black man paint his face and whisper the sacred words about honor and homage.
As the man worked, his mother took a rooster out of a cage and laid the squirming bird on a large butcher-block table. She picked up a meat cleaver and with one vicious whack, chopped off its head.
With a hallowed gesture, she lift
ed the carcass up over her head, then grabbed its feet and swung it back and forth. Splattering blood, chanting as she walked, forming a trail all the way to the water’s edge.
To Laura.
He saw her standing there, the light surrounding her body brighter than most. He was intrigued by her light. He wanted to touch her, to feel her light within him.
You can have her. You can have it all.
He stood and walked toward her. Toward the water. Yes, he would have it all.
Horrified, Laura watched Martha approach her, the dead rooster dangling from her hand, swinging back and forth, the poor bird’s blood flying everywhere.
Then Drew stepped forward. In the glow of the bonfire’s light, he stared at her with cold eyes. No affection. No humanity. No Drew. He was alien to her and it chilled her to the bone.
The two men holding her arms pulled her out into the swamp. She twisted in their grasp, the pain in her shoulder cutting through her, almost making her collapse. A wave of dizziness fell over her and they dragged her farther into the water. They stopped and pushed her onto her knees.
“Martha, please!” she begged as the woman walked toward her.
Stopping in front of her, Martha swung the rooster. Blood dropped onto Laura’s head and trickled down her cheeks. Her stomach heaved. She gagged and leaned forward. The men jerked her upright, pulling at her shoulder. She cried out, bringing a gleam of triumph to Martha’s cold eyes.
Laura gasped for breath as sobs overtook her. She was going to die. And Drew was going to stand there and watch…the sacrifice.
Martha dropped the rooster’s carcass into the swamp. She reached into her satchel and Laura’s heart froze. Martha raised her hand high above her head, a long, wickedly sharp knife clutched in her fist.
“Drew!” Laura screamed.
Drew stepped forward. Her frantic gaze swung to his. For a second, something flickered in his eyes—pain? Fear?
“Drew, help me!”
“Mother, stop!” Drew yelled, moving toward them.
A chant rose up from the people on the shoreline. A shout came from the clearing. Laura saw her mother running toward her, yelling and waving her arms.
“Delilah.” An odd smile lifted Martha’s lips, stopping Laura’s heart cold.
“Oh, my God. Mom!” Laura struggled against the men holding her, oblivious to the pain.
Her mother reached the water and plowed in toward them. The two men holding Laura jerked her upright, and squeezed her arms tighter.
In a graceful arc, Martha swung back her arm and threw the knife. It hit her mother, embedding itself deep in her chest.
Laura let out an ear-piercing wail as her mother fell forward. Drew rushed forward and caught her. Holding her, he looked down at her in shocked disbelief. But as her blood spread into his shirt, and dripped into the water, something happened to him. He changed. His face hardened, his eyes grew cold.
Suddenly he was holding her as if she were nothing.
“Drew, help her,” Laura cried.
But she could tell by the glazed look in his eyes, by the lack of focus and emotion that there would be no help from him.
Not for her and not for her mother, who had just run to her death trying to save her.
Anguish sucked away whatever fight Laura had left in her. Charlie had been right. Her mother had loved her.
Only now it was too late. For her. For Drew.
For all of them.
As Drew held Delilah’s body in his arms, he felt her blood flow across his hands, warm and sticky, and drip into the water. And with each drop, the presence grew within him. The power consumed everything as it filled him. Fear, pain, loss, doubt—it all disappeared, making him feel stronger, better.
And he wanted to feel better. He craved the power surging through him. But he knew if he succumbed, he’d be lost. And Laura would die.
He fought the pressure building, expanding within him. Suddenly, people looked different. The woman bleeding in his arms was a power source. Something that would feed him. With each drop he grew bigger, stronger. Invincible.
And he liked it.
No! This was Miss Delilah bleeding in his arms. Fight him!
His mother walked toward him and placed her hands on top of Delilah’s body. “Let her go, Drew. Let her death feed you.”
Delilah looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and pleading. He could see the energy of her light force dimming as the blood flowed out of her body and into the water.
“Drew, help her!” Laura begged. The despair in her voice touched something deep within him. Something that wanted to listen, wanted to help. That something moved within him, pulling at him, fighting the surging power building inside him.
He stepped backward, carrying Delilah toward shore.
“Drop her,” his mother demanded. She rushed forward, pushing down on Delilah.
They struggled, and Delilah sank lower into the water, beneath the dark surface. Power surged through him, warm, heady and intoxicating. Laura screamed.
The pressure within him clawed to the surface.
“No!” A shout came from the trees. The blast of a gun.
His mother stiffened. Her back arched, her eyes widened. Blood seeped from her heart through her red robes.
“Drew,” she whispered, and collapsed into the water.
Somewhere deep inside him, he heard a howl of pain.
Laura wrenched free from her shocked captors and stumbled to where her mother had fallen. She plunged her arms beneath the water and lifted her mother up. Pain constricted her shoulder, making it difficult to breathe as she struggled to pull her mother to shore.
“Drew!”
He turned to her, looking lost and confused.
“Help me!”
He shook his head clear and took her mother out of her arms then carried her toward shore. Her mother coughed, choking up swamp water. Charlie ran toward them, a rifle in his hand. He dropped to the ground next to them.
A loud siren wailed and flashing lights from a sheriff’s car and an ambulance cut through the darkness under the trees.
The dazed crowd scattered, running into the woods.
“Drew, are you okay?” Laura asked, concerned by the lack of emotion on his face or warmth in his eyes.
Laura felt a hand on her arm and turned to find a paramedic standing beside her. “You’re bleeding. We have to get you looked at. What about him?” He gestured toward Drew.
“I don’t know. He must be in shock,” she said, and hoped that was what was wrong with him.
The paramedic led her to the ambulance and helped her up inside with her mother.
Her mother was conscious. Tears swam in her eyes as she reached for Laura’s hand.
“Are you okay?” Laura asked, and knew by the pallor of her skin that she wasn’t. Her heart plummeted. “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you. I was just so hurt, so mad.”
Her mother squeezed her hand. “You never stopped fighting,” she whispered. “Proud of you.”
Laura’s throat closed and shooting pinpricks moved across the bridge of her nose as she fought back her tears.
“Love you.” Her mother’s eyes closed as she drifted to sleep.
Only two little words, yet Laura felt them deep within her. Losing the battle, tears spilled down her face as her heart expanded with bittersweet joy.
As the ambulance pulled away, she saw Drew standing in the clearing, standing apart from everyone else, looking out at the water.
He will be there, but he will be different. The Drew you love will be lost.
Chapter 20
A short while after checking out of the hospital, Laura pulled the rental car up in front of Lionsheart. It had been a long night, but it looked as though her mom would make it. She only hoped she could say the same for Drew.
Staring up at the old house, she believed now that spirits and evil did exist and they thrived in places like Lionsheart.
She hurried toward the front door, once again
filled with fear mingled with hope. Once again determined to find what she came for. Family. Love.
And yet as she stood on the front porch, she hesitated, afraid what she’d find when she opened the door. Afraid of what Drew might have become. She took a deep breath and slowly opened the door. She crept into the house. Candles were burning in every room. Not regular candles, but Martha’s vinegar-scented ceremonial candles.
To complete the ritual?
She was supposed to die. That meant, once again, the ritual wasn’t completed.
You can’t go anywhere near Drew. Do you understand that? Kafu still needs your sacrifice to make the transition complete.
Jeanne’s warning earlier at the hospital rang through her mind. With it came the fear, making her numb. She couldn’t turn her back on Drew, not if there was the slightest chance of saving him. No matter what the risk. She couldn’t leave him. She took a deep breath and forced her feet to move.
Drew was sitting in the living room staring up at her mother’s portrait. “I knew you would come,” he said.
A chill snaked down her spine. “Did you?”
“Yes. He said you would.”
“He?”
“Drew.” He looked up at her and his cold vacant stare froze the blood in her veins.
“Drew was right,” she said. “I came because I love him. And if you’re a part of him, I love you, too.” She forced her legs to move toward him.
“You’re surrounded by light, you know. It’s everywhere. It’s intoxicating.” He sniffed the air, as if he could smell her. As if he were breathing her in. She shuddered.
He stood as she approached him. She placed a hand on his chest. He sucked in a breath and, for a second, something flashed in his eyes. A glimmer, a shadow of Drew?
She grasped onto that flicker of him and leaned forward pressing her lips to his. They were stiff and cold, but she didn’t care because she knew Drew was inside there. She knew he could hear her.
If she could just make him feel her love then perhaps she could get him to come back to her.
She deepened the kiss, ignoring how different he felt and started unbuttoning her shirt. They had a special connection when they touched each other, when they made love. She’d never felt that strong, binding connection with anyone else, and somehow she knew, it was the one way to reach him. To pull him back to her.
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